When Does "Warehousing" Tip Into Abuse? Cooke, Young & Keidan LLP v Davis

Delay in prosecuting proceedings is not, without more, an abuse of process, but it could be if a party has deliberately parked (or ‘warehoused’) a claim, intending to revive it at a later point.

In Cooke, Young & Keidan LLP v Davis [2026] EWHC 2093 (Ch), HHJ Johns KC offers practical guidance on what an applicant must establish if it wants the court to strike out a claim on the basis of delay, and on how the court is to weigh prolonged inactivity where responsibility for the delay is shared between the parties and the court.

Background

In July 2021, Cooke, Young & Keidan LLP (“CYK”) sued its former clients, Mr Laurence Davis and Mr John Baker, for unpaid fees of just under £200,000. The defendants counterclaimed for professional negligence, valued at around £20 million, arising out of CYK’s conduct of earlier litigation.